Non-believers, too, are entitled to a say in the debate on values

Page Tools

There is no universal definition of what is right and wrong in
family life, writes Emily Maguire.

In his final speech to Parliament before the summer break, John
Howard expressed his belief in the "goodness" of Christianity and
claimed to have personally "endeavoured, completely inadequately,
to live according to the basic tenets of the Christian
religion".

Inadequately, indeed, according to Labor's Kevin Rudd. Speaking
on behalf of "Christians within the Labor tradition", Rudd
criticised Howard for "chant[ing] the mantra of family and moral
values" while failing to "relieve the burden of those who cannot
properly fend for themselves".

Rudd has a point, but as an atheist with a passion for social
justice I am frustrated by the way both sides of politics
consistently link religiosity with morality. My morality is based
on my humanity.

I know what it is to suffer and so I try not to hurt others.
Where I find people suffering, I try to help them. Like Howard, I
am completely inadequate in my endeavour to live a moral life, but
I try.

The problem with having self-defined values is that it's easy
for others to claim that you have none at all. Consider this neat
verbal trick by Family First's Victorian senator-elect, Steve
Fielding. It's difficult to "articulate" what family values means,
he said recently, "but everybody knows what it is - and they know
what it's not".

Judging by Family First's policies Fielding is using "family
values" as shorthand for a collection of beliefs based on
preserving the nuclear family as the norm. Among political
conservatives, tax, education, health and industrial relations
policy are often talked of in terms of supporting family values. To
these can be added abortion, same-sex marriage and censorship if
the political conservative is also religious.

But my family values are very different. I believe that it is
more important for children to be wanted and loved than it is for
them to have parents who are married or of different sexes. I
believe it is more important that a family works on its own terms
than that it conforms to a particular model.

Clearly, there is no universal definition of "family values".
What statements like Fielding's do is set up a value as an absolute
so that anyone who disagrees with either the policies behind it or
the definition itself is automatically "anti-values". Further
discussion is useless because who cares about the opinion of
someone who is "anti-family?"

Defending a policy by appealing to "values" marks it as being
closed to debate, because aren't we all committed to respecting
people's "values"? One cannot disagree with the baby bonus, for
example, without being accused of attacking family values. If you
dare to suggest that excessive Town Hall tinsel is a waste of
money, you are attacking Christian values.

Think of Howard's masterful hit on public schools. The
imprecision of the term "values neutral" meant that it was
impossible for anyone to disprove this alleged deficit. The
defenders of public schooling were forced to talk about amorphous
"positive values" rather than discuss specifics of what was being
achieved in schools. The brave few who pointed out that tolerance
and multiculturalism were key values of public schools, were
derided as "politically correct". When Howard said "values", he
meant his.

The frustration of it all is that, while our leaders are busy
being horrified by disco remixes and secular school concerts,
situations deserving of righteous outrage are ignored.

According to UNICEF, more than a billion children do not have
access to life's essentials, such as shelter, water, health care
and food, and nearly half the world's victims of war are
children.

Speaking of war, a study by the medical journal Lancet
concluded that 100,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed as a result
of the US-led occupation. In Sudan, where there is no oil and so
little incentive for Western intervention, at least 70,000 people
have been murdered and many, many more terrorised and raped.

Here at home our "Christian" Government throws cash at
middle-class families while making stern contracts with indigenous
people to provide them with the basic necessities. Our Prime
Minister crows about how wealthy he has made us all while more than
2 million Australians live in poverty.

I'm not a Christian but I am a great admirer of the biblical
Jesus. I cannot understand how anyone professing to love this
man/god and follow his teachings can spend time and energy on
protecting some arbitrary notion of family, or bleating about how
economically well-off they are, when there is so much suffering in
the world.

Jesus was for "the least" of us; he was for the poor, sick,
hungry and downtrodden. He was radically egalitarian, hanging out
with prostitutes and beggars. He was the model of a bleeding-heart
do-gooder.

If only politicians would shut up about Christianity and instead
work harder at living like the bloke who inspired it.

Emily Maguire is the author of Taming the Beast (Brandl &
Schlesinger)